Miracle On Ice, America’s Greatest Sports Moment, Turns 35
By Chris Gay
Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
The now immortal words of America’s greatest sporting moment were uttered by a not-yet-established broadcaster, Al Michaels, who called the game for ABC Sports. The result of the contest, and his call of it, would forever brand the outcome as the Miracle on Ice. On February 22, 2015 that miracle turns 35.
As the Olympic hockey game between the USA and Soviet Union wore down to its final seconds, Michaels’ provided the spoken-word soundtrack to accompany the impossibility that was unfolding right before the eyes of a shocked, yet ecstatic, nationwide television audience:
“McClanahan is there, the puck is still loose…eleven seconds! You’ve got ten seconds! The countdown’s going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk; five seconds left in the game…Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”
That call still brings chills.
Many know this tale well, but some aren’t nearly as familiar with it. Time has a way of doing things like that. So presented here in honor of its milestone anniversary is an abridged version of the Miracle’s story.
It’s difficult to describe to those who weren’t around then how the convergence of politics and sports combined to form a Perfect Storm of opportunity
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for the United States. I was very young at the time, yet still just old enough to grasp some of the moment’s significance. And it stays with all who were there for it.
From that time to this, through all the amazing sporting feats of the last four decades, there has still been nothing to equal what occurred on a bluish-tinted ice surface in the small, scenic upstate New York village of Lake Placid. Which is why the accomplishment is so revered to this day.
In 1980, the Olympics were different than today. Only amateurs were allowed to participate, which is one reason USA Hockey’s very young team wasn’t given much of a chance in their own country. The problem they had was that they actually were using amateurs, as opposed to some of their toughest competition who were only pretending to.
At the XIII Olympiad at Lake Placid it wasn’t Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Vladimir Tarasenko versus Patrick Kane and Pat LaFontaine, it was essentially Ovechkin, Malkin, Tarasenko and the likes versus a somewhat more talented version of an ECHL squad.
The “amateurs” on the Soviet National Team were a collection of star and superstar players who were technically part of the Soviet military, and thus considered non-professionals.
For brevity’s sake I’ll spare you most of the numerical statistics, and just say that the Soviets were an unrelenting, nearly unstoppable steamroller completely unaccustomed to losing. They crushed nearly every team having the misfortune to cross their path.
Heading into those Games, the American squad was clearly no match for Russia, nor was it expected to be. Indeed, a fortnight prior the Russians easily dispatched Team USA in Manhattan by a 7-goal margin.
A USA Olympic victory, were the opportunity even to present itself, didn’t seem even remotely possible against the Red Army, its legendary coach Viktor Tikhonov, and its supernatural goaltender Vladislav Tretiak.
There was one exception, though. A Minnesota collegiate hockey coach and former Olympic hopeful named Herb Brooks did, in fact, think it was possible. More on him in a minute.
By the beginning of 1980, the United States had faced, among other things, the embarrassment of Watergate, gas shortages, the wretched Carter Administration, the Iranian crisis and, scariest of all, the ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union.
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1980 was a time that barely pre-dated Matthew Broderick’s Wargames; along with the TV movies The Day After and Threads. At times you went to sleep hoping that these two superpowers would keep the Cold War cold, because the alternative was unthinkable.
Brooks though was unperturbed by all of it, and was laser-focused on the hockey aspect of the Games.
He’d been the last player cast aside from the eventual (and only) US Olympic Gold Medal winning team just prior to the 1960 Winter Olympics in California. He was also swelled with an unshakeable resolve to duplicate the two-decade old historic feat of the team he almost skated for.
That approximately no one gave Brooks’s collegiate collection a chance to strike Gold at Lake Placid was irrelevant to him. It was his job to ensure that his group was fully prepared to face whatever stood in its way. And as it turned out, they were.
Throughout the Games the scrappy Americans unexpectedly fought their way into the Medal Round with an undefeated record, including a tie.
Their efforts earned them a date with the Russian buzz saw. ABC Sports chose not to show the Friday broadcast of the USA-Soviet game live at its 5 p.m. Eastern face-off time-slot. Instead it broadcast it on tape delay at 8 o’clock.
But this was prior to the internet and smartphones; ESPN was in its infancy and few homes had “cable TV”. (Which back then was nothing at all like it is today, anyway) All of this made it much easier to avoid the score. And so, many Americans unknowingly sat back to watch their National Team fight the good fight in prime time.
During the game itself the Soviets built a 1-0 first period lead against American goaltender Jim Craig. After that, Bill “Buzz” Schneider tied it with a precision top-shelf slap-shot from the left wing that somehow eluded Tretiak.
Later in the period Sergei Makarov, who nine years later would secure the NHL’s Rookie of the Year award at 31, untied it.
With one second left Mark Johnson, figurative favorite son of Wisconsin, literal son of legendary hockey coach Bob Johnson and future Hartford Whalers captain, re-tied the game against Tretiak on a goal Russia never should have allowed.
Anticipating the period-ending buzzer, Tretiak and his defensemen eased up on the play. Johnson, however, did not.
Skating full tilt to the very end, he split the pair of blue-liners, collected a rebound Tretiak should not have allowed, then moved left and beat the backstop to even the score at 2 with a single tick remaining on the clock.
The repercussion of Johnson’s goal was heard ‘round the world, as it prompted Tikhonov to replace the incomparable Tretiak in net with backup Vladimir Myshkin.
Myshkin, a good goaltender in his own right, responded by allowing no goals in the second period. The Soviets tallied once in the frame, and so they took a 3-2 lead into the third period.
With 11:21 left in the game, Johnson re-un-tied it on an almost indescribable goal off a pass from a USA defenseman Dave Silk, who vertically flung the puck net-ward while falling to the ice from just inside the blue line.
The disc reached the stick and skates of Russian defensemen Sergei Starikov, who in misplaying it fumbled it right to Johnson, who buried it past Myshkin to knot the score at 3.
81 seconds later with exactly 10:00 left, like Silk before him Mark Pavelich directed a pass while falling to the ice; this time horizontally from the sideboards. The puck made it to a late-arriving Mike Eruzione, who beat Myshkin through his own defenseman’s screen to achieve a 4-3 lead for the United States.
Eruzione might as well have swung his stick at a hornets nest, because the Soviets had very little experience at playing from behind late in hockey games and, of all times, were certainly not happy about needing to do so then.
As such in response the Red Army threw kitchen sink after kitchen sink at Craig, who became a wall; stopping everything fired at him. During that onslaught one Soviet shot did strike the goalpost, which would’ve been very fortuitous for them if posts were 6’3″ apart. Alas, they’re only 6’0″ apart; which is the way Life goes sometimes. But I digress.
Extremely late in the game, at a point in which every hockey coach on Earth would’ve pulled his goaltender for an extra attacker, Tikhonov didn’t.
The Soviets had been so dominant that they simply had little practice with the basic play of getting their goalie off the ice so another skater could take his place. As any hockey fan knows, like a football team that doesn’t bother to practice on-sides kicks, that is almost unfathomable.
Ultimately, Craig could not be solved and time ran out on the Soviets. And when the clock reached 0:00 the United States had pulled off a feat that was damn near as close to impossible as a victory in sports can be.
The following Sunday, the Russians crushed Sweden, 9-2. But it was too little, too late.
Earlier that same Sunday with the Russians watching helplessly, USA defeated Finland. That American victory secured the US amateurs the Gold Medal and dropped the Soviets into the Silver slot…and the Miracle on Ice into immortality.
In 1984, the Soviets returned to their gold medal-winning ways, but the damage had been done. Not long after the political winds shifted, and as a result professionals were allowed to participate in the Olympics; significantly evening the playing field.
The end result is that what America and our ice hockey coach Herb Brooks accomplished at the 13th Winter Olympics on a cold February day in Lake Placid will likely remain unmatched.
Two members of the 1980 Miracle On Ice team are gone now. Brooks, who passed away in 2004, and defenseman Bob Suter, who passed away
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unexpectedly in 2014. Suter’s son Ryan is also a defenseman, and currently an Alternate Captain of the National Hockey League’s Minnesota Wild.
Defenseman Ken Morrow, after winning the Gold Medal, went downstate to Long Island and joined the NHL team that drafted him years before, the New York Islanders. After participating in the Lake Placid miracle, he immediately proceeded to win a mind-boggling four consecutive Stanley Cups with the Isles. They remain the only Cups that franchise has won to this date.
In this existence, like Russell-as-Brooks stated, some great moments are indeed born of opportunity. And yet others are enhanced by their times and circumstances. Then there are those that are created out of both, and it’s those few moments which are elevated to immortality. In sports, one such moment took place in the Adirondack Mountains on February 22, 1980.
In the annals of American athletic achievements, this moment stands alone at #1, and has since the final buzzer sounded 35 years ago. And though my words may sound hyperbolic, their actions still greatly exceeded the hyperbole.
Happy 35th, USA Hockey.
(Note: While several members of the 1980 Olympic Team had been previously drafted by World Hockey Association (WHA) teams, that league had folded by the 1980 Olympic Winter Games. As part of the WHA’s agreement to contract itself, the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford (New England) Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets were absorbed into the NHL. As such, none of the 1980 USA Hockey Olympians ever played in the WHA)
The 1980 USA Men’s ice hockey roster:
#1 Steve Janaszak, Goaltender (Was not drafted. Played in NHL for: Minnesota North Stars, Colorado Rockies)
#3 Ken Morrow, Defenseman (Drafted by WHA: New England Whalers. NHL: New York Islanders. Played for Islanders)
#5 Mike Ramsey, Defenseman (Drafted by NHL: Buffalo Sabres. Played for: Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, Detroit Red Wings)
#6 Bill Baker: 1980 USA Alternate Captain, Defenseman (Drafted by WHA: New England Whalers. NHL: Montreal Canadiens. Played for Canadiens, Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Blues, New York Rangers)
#8 Dave Silk, Right Wing (Drafted by NHL: New York Rangers Played for: Rangers, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings and Winnipeg Jets)
#9 Neal Broten, Center (Drafted by NHL: Minnesota North Stars. Played for: North Stars, Dallas Stars, New Jersey Devils, Los Angeles Kings)
#10 Mark Johnson, Center (Drafted by WHA: Birmingham Bulls. NHL: Pittsburgh Penguins. Played for: Penguins, Minnesota North Stars, Hartford Whalers, St. Louis Blues, New Jersey Devils)
#11 Steve Christoff, Center (Drafted by NHL: Minnesota North Stars. Played for: North Stars, Calgary Flames, Los Angeles Kings)
#15 Mark Wells, Center (Drafted by NHL: Montreal Canadiens. Played for no NHL team)
#16 Mark Pavelich, Center (Was not drafted. Played in NHL for: New York Rangers, Minnesota North Stars. San Jose Sharks)
#17 Jack O’Callahan, 1980 USA Alternate Captain, Defenseman (Drafted by WHA: Calgary Cowboys. NHL: Chicago Black Hawks. Played for: Black Hawks, New Jersey Devils)
#19 Eric Strobel, Right Wing (Drafted by NHL: Buffalo Sabres. Never played in the NHL)
#20 Bob Suter, Defenseman (1957-2014) (Drafted by WHA: Birmingham Bulls. NHL: Los Angeles Kings. Never played in the NHL. Bob Suter passed away at 57 on September 9th, 2014)
#21 Mike Eruzione, 1980 Team Captain, Left Wing (Drafted by WHA: New England Whalers. Never played in the NHL)
#23 Dave Christian, Right Wing (Drafted by NHL: Winnipeg Jets. Played for: Jets, Washington Capitals, Boston Bruins, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Black hawks)
#24 Rob McClanahan, Left Wing (Drafted by NHL: Buffalo Sabres. Played for: Sabres, New York Rangers, Hartford Whalers)
#25 Bill “Buzz” Schneider, Left Wing (Drafted by WHA: Minnesota Fighting Saints. NHL: Pittsburgh Penguins. Never played in the NHL)
#27 Phil Verchota, Left Wing (Drafted by WHA: Calgary Cowboys. NHL: Minnesota North Stars. Never played in the NHL)
#28 John “Bah” Harrington, Right Wing (Was not drafted. Never played in the NHL)
#30 Jim Craig, Goaltender (Drafted by WHA: Cincinnati Stingers. NHL: Atlanta Flames. Played for: Flames, Boston Bruins, Minnesota North Stars)